Rakesh Saxena, 70, was recently sentenced to 335 years in jail (yes, 335 years) over three lawsuits stemming from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce embezzlement scandal in the 1990s. He will serve only 20 years behind bars, the maximum term under the Thai Penal Code.
Bangkok Bank of Commerce was one of the first banks to fall ahead of the Asian Economic Crisis. Between 1993 and 1994, BBC spent over Baht 36 billion on business takeovers and leveraged buyouts. BBC also granted loans with insufficient or overpriced collateral to companies controlled by Saxena, BBC executives and associates, including politicians.
When the music stopped, it was clear that BBC was hopelessly insolvent and the Bank of Thailand took control. It was then liquidated in 1998.
Krirkkiat Jalichandra, the disgraced BBC president, was sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined Baht 3.1 billion. He died in October 2012 while serving his prison sentence.
Saxena fought extradition from Canada between 1997 and 2009. He then fought a legal battle in Thailand that ended this month with a final Supreme Court ruling.
The shenanigans at BBC mostly predated my time in Thailand. However, in my early days, I did come across it on the periphery of several transactions. One treated BBC with caution as rumours circulated that all was not well within the bank.
Rakesh Saxena and the Thai banking scandal that triggered Asia’s financial crisis
September 2022
© PELEN 2022
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